The Good Life in the Gulf

...That's why Hussein is ardently seeking enough international support to force Iran into negotiations...

...Soldiers in fatigue uniforms clustered on street comers, bargained at taxi stands, sipped tea at roadside cafes—and tried to forget the carnage of the bloodiest war since World War II...

...At the moment, though, the Gulf war seems far away from the safety of Kuwait, even to those who claim to occasionally hear the distant booming of Iraqi and Iranian cannons...

...diplomats to try to convince Hussein to go easy, with promises of trade credits he needs to bail out his economy as the carrot...

...In Dubai and Abu Dhabi, two of the wealthiest cities to have emerged on the Gulf in the petrodollar era, theprospect of an expanding war seems as unreal as a mirage in the desert...

...This does not keep American sailors from going ashore—they proclaim the bars of Dubai among the best in the region...

...In Kuwait, a reporter can't even slake his thirst with a beer after a hard day's knocking on doors that never open and telephoning officials who never call back...

...Still, there is no doubt that the United States and Iraq have enjoyed increasingly close relations since 1984, when they resumed the ties broken by Baghdad during the 1967 Middle East conflict...

...With Iraqi planes again bombing and strafing ships traveling to and from Iranian ports, Teheran may in desperation step up its own assaults on freighters servicing both Iraq and the nonbelligerent Gulf states—Kuwait, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, and the United Arab Emirates...

...citizens living off the oil industry tend to sympathize with the government's general refusal to open doors to foreign correspondents...

...Prices dropped precipitously on the Iraqi side...

...rushing to his defense if the Iranian hordes totally overrun his lines...

...The fact that Kuwait does not countenance alcoholic refreshment would clearly make it a most undesirable rest-andrecreation spot for U.S...

...flag...

...Nightly, the sound of cannon fire reverberates from a front line located only a dozen miles to the east...

...For one thing, the Soviet Union provides most of his arms...

...Further down the Gulf, the United States is subtly creating conditions that will enable it to keep a permanent presence in the region and someday build the bases it needs to project its power...

...He has solidified his power while the forces of Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini, clearly more dedicated to waging "holy war" than the Iraqis, have nibbled away at his land...

...And that's why he has renewed attacks on shipping in the Persian Gulf— to show Iran how costly it is to continue a war neither side is likely to win...

...It is the fear of such an escalation that impels U.S...

...His country has been engaged in battle with Iran since the end of his first year in office...

...Authorities in the Emirates do not seem terribly happy about the influx of correspondents, but they are not so concerned as the Kuwaitis to keep shipping company agents from talking to them...

...warships has done much to allay worries...

...We have great confidence in the UnitedStates," heassured me, and anxiously added in the same breath, "United States prestige is now at stake in the Gulf...

...If anything, relations swiftly improved as new diplomatic channels were opened to insure there would be no repetition of that kind of tragedy...

...The country is, however, a temporary haven for a team of U.S...

...They cling, almost pathetically, to the concept of "neutrality," underscoring their close ties to the Soviet Union and hesitating to blame Iran point-blank for mining their waters...

...The Middle East task force commander, Rear Admiral Harold Bernsen, resides in a mansion on the tiny islandnation when not occupied on his flagship, the LaSalle...

...Bahrain ranks among the most sophisticated and "Westernized" of the Gulf countries, with local sheiks accustomed to an outside presence dating from the days of British rule...

...Certainly Hussein has no illusions about the U.S...

...ships, to be sure, head off the intruders by loudspeaker and with occasional warning shots, but at least the press can get news of the comings and goings of the convoys...

...Ultimately, though, Hussein is counting on Washington for much more than economic support...

...The transition, upon crossing the border checkpoint, was abrupt...

...The reflagging of the oil tankers and the presence of the largest gathering of U.S...

...It was not until mines started bobbing up in the Gulf of Oman and a couple of ships were blasted that local authorities started to worry about the conflict possibly impinging on their own happy world...

...It is precisely the suspicion that the U.S...

...had actually been exercising "forbearance...

...It is a modus vivendi that will crumble quickly, however, if Hussein keeps trying to "leach the Iranians a lesson" they are clearly not about to heed...

...Ironically, the spectacle of an armada that includes growing numbers of British, French and Soviet as well as U.S...

...Members of the press are not allowed to set foot in the Administrative Support Unit, and are unlikely to get permission to visit American warships in the Gulf...

...On the Shatt-al-Arab's formerly grassy banks, bored Iraqi soldiers lounging on heaps of sandbags attend antiaircraft artillery and machine guns, all made in the Soviet Union...

...That's why he enthusiastically backs the UN resolution calling for a complete ceasefire...

...But the sheiks who run the Emirates are, if anything, more reluctant than Kuwaiti leaders to see the U. S. turn their territories into a forward base, and Washington has so far not broached the topic of a permanent military outpost with them...

...Rather, it can focus on the scores of other ships that still ply the waters unescorted, and rely on mines tossed by Revolutionary Guardsmen for an occasional lucky strike—like the one that blasted a hole in the Bridgeton in July, on its maiden voyage under the U.S...

...Nobody wants the press here, " a Getty Oil executive told me...

...Their wariness was reflected in remarks made by an official in Bahrain...

...They have closed the Shatt-al-Arab, Iraq's only route to its abandoned Persian Gulf oil terminals, and grabbed small chunks along the central front...

...Iraq's President Saddam Hussein would no doubt also like to forget...

...Navy divers helping to clear the approaches to anchorages off its shores...

...A single act of retaliation against an Iranian base—or even an Iranian patrol boat—would go far toward proving the point to Arab sheiks mindful of uncertain U.S...

...The doors of the Basra Sheraton, a monument to Western free enterprise in this rather haphazardly Socialist state, are bolted, chained and locked, and weeds grow in the lawn that graced it during its brief history as the center of social life in Iraq's second largest city...

...The strategy need not involve direct challenges to Kuwaiti vessels flying U.S., British or Soviet flags, much less the warships accompanying them...

...Ano less complacent view prevails in the United Arab Emirates...

...AMID A BLOODY WAR The Good Life in the Persian Gulf By Donald Kirk Bahrain The hulks of gutted freighters rising at crazy angles from the Shatt-al-Arab dramatize the waste of the seven-year-old war in the Persian Gulf...

...This had seemed strangely remote in Kuwait, the most affluent of the oil-rich Persian Gulf states, where wealth seems to drip from the luxury hotels, shopping centers and apartment complexes...

...Hussein is well aware that increased attacks on shipping could jeopardize his standing with the Arab nations that support him: Saudi Arabian leaders may have railed against Iran for encouraging its zealots to run riot at Mecca, but they as much as any other of Iraq's allies pray for peace on the waters...

...Today avisitingjoumalist, aware of how touchy Iraqi officials are about foreigners taking unescorted tours, hardly dares get out of his taxi, much less photograph the scene...

...Kuwait's oil and gas flows so profusely that the Iranians would have to blockade and bomb its ports before casting real fear into its leaders—who are, moreover, supremely confident of their skill in winning the protection of a wide range of foreign powers...

...Crowds in the Sultan Center, where goods from throughout the world are sold, seemed happily oblivious to the peril on the Gulf waters shimmering in the distance...

...You see them as you round a downtown street corner in the Iraqi city of Basra and turn onto the corniche, once a stately esplanade where the local gentry would stroll on sultry evenings beneath wide-hanging trees whose branches seem to dip into the fabled waterway...

...Foreigners and local citizens alike bank their earnings almost tax-free, and they shop for goodies priced the lowest in the area...

...We've never been so busy...

...It'll take more than a few mines to undermine confidence in this place, " said one of the Brits in charge of the port of Fujairah as he looked at all the ships moored beyond the breakwater...

...Donald Kirk, a longtime NL contributor who writes for USA Today, has just returned from a tour of the Persian Gulf...

...I drove through Basra on my way from Kuwait to Baghdad, hoping that a glimpse of the city would give me some sense of the suffering caused by theconfliet...

...They're all troublemakers...

...sailors on duty in the Gulf, who are now earning an extra $1 10 monthly in "imminent danger" pay...

...performance in Vietnam, Central America and Lebanon...

...Thecountry's unique position on both the Persian Gulf and the Gulf of Oman gives ils "shipping sources," as the press keeps calling them, the best vantage point for marking the formation of convoys of reflagged ships and their passage through the Strait of Hormuz...

...The United States inherited the British legacy 40 years ago, in the form of an Administrative Support Unit that provides backup facilities for U.S...

...Why should the United States...

...The communications system is the finest in the area, prompting foreign banks to turn Bahrain into a regional financial center...

...One can rentacarin Dubai, on the Persian Gulf, and drive across the desert a couple of hours to Fujairah, on the Gulf of Oman, for a first-hand look at freighters waiting off-shore to make the voyage through the Strait...

...Despite Iraq and Iran's bellicose rhetoric, it is by no means clear that either state is willing to upset the delicate balance on the Gulf...

...Neither, he said, would "risk confrontation" with the other, and both have shown "courtesy" in daily operations...

...Not even the episode in which an Iraqi warplane fired an Exocet missile at the U.S...

...Yet so sensitive are Bahrainis to publicity suggesting their emerging role as a "strategic base area" that authorities are now restricting journalists' visas and specif ically asking U. S. military and diplomatic personnel to hold back on giving interviews...

...might waver that makes Gulf leaders stop one step short of making the kind of commitment Washington would like...

...The Soviet Union does not write articles about its ships in the Gulf," a Bahraini information officer told me...

...In practice, the Kuwaitis are supplying Iraq with both fuel and funds—all the while dreading the possibility that the Ayatollah's Army might someday cross the 30-mile-wide neck of Iraqi territory shielding them from Iran...

...American sailors, dressed in civvies, regularly pack the bars and marketplaces, mingling easily with local Brits and other Europeans...

...The American convoys remain discreetly out of sight, just over the horizon...

...Kuwaiti authorities cringe at Washington's suggestion that it would be nice if they also let mine-hunting Sea Stallion helicopters fly in and out for refueling and repairs...

...Mental pictures, though, may suffice to convey the devastation of the war that drags on along the Iraq-Iran frontier and in the waters of the Persian Gulf, the Strait of Hormuz, and the Gulf of Oman to the south...

...Navy ships since the Vietnam War has led him and his counterparts in the other Gulf states to place a kind of naive faith in Uncle Sam as a guarantor of regional stability...

...Iraq cannot possibly get them back without a loss of matériel and manpower that might totally bankrupt the economy and exhaust the morale of the people...

...We're a lot safer here than in the United States," said the wife of an American engineer...

...Navy frigate Stark, killing 37 American sailors, dimmed the growing mutual ardor...

...Kuwaitis are guaranteed free health care and education, and the poorest of them live in two-bedroom apartments cleaned by maids from the Indian subcontinent— part of a huge foreign work force that keeps the Gulf states going...

...The U.S...

...Hussein's threats, like those of Khomeini and other Iranian leaders (notably Assembly speaker Ali Akbar Hashemi Rafsanjani), indicate just how close the conflict is to consuming the entire Persian Gulf...

...Navy ships in the Gulf...

...The crucial step for Washington is to demonstrate conclusively that it will not back away if pushed by Teheran...

...No attempt is made to obstruct these excursions—in contrast to Kuwait, where patrol boats are sent out to block the press and confiscate film and videotape...

...for another, Israel would not look kindly on American succor being offered to one of its longstanding Arab foes...

...Similarly, although the headlines sometimes make it sound like the tanker convoys are running a gauntlet of tire, a shipping official in Bahrain told me both Iran and the U.S...

...Television crews and still photographers hire helicopters and tugboats (sometimes at extraordinary prices) to take them into the Gulf of Oman for shots...

...The drop in oil prices over the past few years has forced Kuwaiti leaders to scale down some of their lavish projects, but the country remains a never-never-land of broad expressways, smart shops and rows of apartment blocks running into a desert blooming with oil rigs...